Teachers’ changes when addressing the challenges in unexpected migration to online mathematics teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study in Shanghai

In the research reported in this paper we investigated teachers’ changes when adopting and adapting to emergency online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG). By adapting complementary accounts methodology to research into teachers’ changes when addressing the unexpected migration to online teaching, an integrated data set, including online teaching videos, teacher daily reflections, and teacher interviews from two purposefully selected teachers over two weeks of online teaching, was collected and analyzed qualitatively. Both teachers encountered different difficulties and thus had different knowledge changes displayed in different change routes. For the experienced teacher, students’ mistakes in homework and her online teaching practice triggered her knowledge changes. For the young teacher, the online video lessons, relevant resources on the Internet and students’ performance were her primary sources that triggered the changes of her knowledge for teaching. These differences between the experienced teacher and young teacher provide evidence of the complexity of teacher’s professional growth, which is related to a variety of external and internal factors. This study demonstrates how the IMPG model helps uncover teachers’ changes in such an unprecedented virtual-teaching environment. Finally, the implications of this study for teacher professional development in general are discussed. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11858-022-01378-y.